A record of an art quilter's life. The site name comes from Natalie Goldberg's phrase 'falling down the well' to describe the experience of becoming immersed in the trance of writing (or other creative activity.)

Sunday, December 23, 2012

Please understand, I am in no way complaining that, while I was at the gym, my husband braved the traffic to go and collect the Tesco click and collect order. I appreciated that. What I am saying is, on my return:

Man fridge unpacking: " There's a problem. There's no room for the Turkey and wine."

Girl fridge re-packing

All in. But yeah, I might have bought a turkey that is a smidgen too big for six people....

Monday, December 17, 2012

My friend Linda on her blog recently dubbed me Filofax Queen. I am happy to have that title but I think I might deserve to be an Empress after today. In my family it is a standing joke thay my sister gets bargain after bargain and everything I want to buy goes up in price the day before I go shopping. Well not today.

Little Sis, read and weep.

First, Personal Malden Filofax now unavailable save through Filofax France for €99, on ebay, grand total of £20.

And it comes with a filofax pen and sticky note insert.

Then, later, late night shopping in Liverpool, I stumbled on a TK Maxx and remembered that the Philofaxy community mention it as a place for bargains. So we enter with me saying, "Of course, there won't be any now I am in here." Wrong.

Long unavailable A5 red Amazonia, RRP £125. Mine for £39.99. Its a beautiful deep yet still slightlu orangy red. Like an african sunset.

And better, this piece of gorgeousness not made by Filofax themselves but with compatible rings and tshe softest of softest leather for £14.99. I put the ruler in to check the ring spacing. Is this not the happiest filofax ever seen?

There will be a video about this on Philofaxy's next webfinds in a hope more information about its provenance can be found. (ie.... Are there more?!)

Tuesday, December 04, 2012

To answer the questions left in commentS in my previous posts, this is what I currently use my filofaxes for, although of course the delight of them is their flexibility so who knows when this might change. Working up from the bottom of the big pile of A5 models first we have...

1. Chocolate Classic. Usually lives at work and houses notes on new law and procedural rules.

2. Pink Classic. Still being set up in its new use as a wet studio Filo containing dyeing and printing instructions and swatches of fabrics I dyed with notes of how I did it. I am taking my time setting this up as the true wet studio ( as opposed to the ramshackle temporary arrangements of buckets of water in the dry studio) is not going to be built until next month!

3. Saddle brown Cuban. Ah, actually after I took this photo I had a swap around, which is why I had all these together in the first place. It was holding sketchbook pages. It is now empty but about to go to work to hold case notes.

4. Chilli red Cuban. Currently holding a test set up for work which, as it is working, will be rolled out soon across three filos. This has a diary, case notes, protocol checklists, telephone lists, meeting minutes and the like. Now I know my system works it will expand as extra items in those categories are added. So the two Cubans will probably contain case notes in two categories ( excuse me being vague but I cannot discuss the detail of my work online) project notes such as material relating to a new book contract I am about to sign, and the other items will go into the wine Holborn. My colleague at work calls me a Filofax nerd. He is right so I take no offence!

7. Purple Malden. This also had a swap around. I had set it up to contain art materials and sketchbook pages but it wasnt pleasing me so I took the art stuff out and combined the pages with the sketchbook pages that had been in the thinner Cuban.

8. Mustard Finchley. Contains notes and website references, clippings, gallery leaftlets etc on contemporary african art which is an interest of mine. It may well expand to non african artists in due course.

9. Caramel Finchley. Currently my upgraded health filo. This was in the small and cheap lineburst but as I put myself on a serious training and weight watching programme I gave myself the reward of more space and more leather! It has a training diary, notes on exercise routines and general health research, yoga, psychology of health, a goals and reward section and a food section for listing health benefits of certain foods, their weightwatcher points and health characteristics.

10. Jade Finchley. Home Filo. Lives in the kitchen. Contains shopping lists, lists of recipes I want to try from my book collection, a bread making journal, and sections with to do lists, shopping research, plans and designs etc for the areas of the house still awaiting rennovation. I maintain this needs a list of all 79 different lightbulb models we seem to require in this house and which one fits which light fitting and how many spares we have on hand/ need buying. My husband says this is a step too far and we can just take the blown bulb to the shop. This is why I am going up and down the studio step using a torch at the moment.

11. Wine Holborn. Awaiting 2013 to come into fruition when it will go to work. Currently already full with a page on a day cream diary hacked from a bound Letts version.

12. Plum Osterley. This is where it kind of gets funny. Or super organised, depending on your view point. This is basically now my 'transit filo'. With so many filos if I have a few spare moments to say update my blog ideas list or to read about african art I often don' t have the right filo with me if I am not at home but I like to use them in cafes between home and work say or in the odd lunch time moment. So, this week I altered the set up of this slightly as it was underused with a commonplace journal, reading and Love Film lists and a bound journal tucked in the back pocket for general web browsing and magazine reading notes. Things I want to follow up on. It also now has a 'capture section' which is basically blank paper for mind dump notes and a transit section which is a space for me to insert pages taken from any number of other filos if I want to work on them but not carry the whole filo. I then have a section with five sheets of every type of paper I use in all my filos ( and an index list to remind me what I use for each section) and copies of all my homemade inserts. So yes, this is my filofax to organise my filofaxes! I also added a financial section this week and now its pretty full. I drive to the backdoor of my office so there is no problem carting an A5 with me. ( the driving to the backdoor explains the need fr a setious training and weightwatching programme!)

Turning now to the small pile, again bottom up.

13. London Line burst. This was so cheap online I bought it for the inserts and it was my health filo. Now storeing spare personal papers and likely to be used to archive this years diary.

14. Mushroom aston. This is my planner with monthly weekly and daily pages, to do lists and notes. It did have finances but I moved those to the Osterley in anticipation of a 2012 downsize to the Regency for daily use. It will probably get used to hold used 2013 pages as I go through the year.

15. Orchid Aston. Had a brief spell as a gratitude journal by my bed but that never really worked. Now housing most of the 2012 day on two pages I got from France. You cannot fit a whole year of these in a personal so some are loose inside and not on the rings and some are already in the ...

16 Compact Regency. All set up and ready to go as my 2013 planner. I can't wait for New Year to get to this new set up.

So, as I say, all used and justified ( if a little weakly in the case of the personals!) When I meet the first of my health goals my reward will be a grey Osterley. I have a little time to work out what to use that for...

Sunday, December 02, 2012

So far, I have hidden my out of control obsession passion for using filofaxes by keeping all my blogging about it as guest posts on the Philofaxy blog. But maybe, it is time to come clean.....The great thing about the Philofaxy blog is that it makes having an out of control desire requirement for owning multiple leather binders normal. The good folks over there are very social and like from time to time to meet up to discuss their Addiction organisational skills. The tradition is that the attendees on such a meet up bring a filofax or two and a pile is made...

Like this

Except there was no meet up. They are all mine. Ooops. (And the A4 was still at work!)

Two are set up for pending 2013 use which means that two current ones will be retired as storeage binders, otherwise they are all in full use and so perfectly justifiable :)

I would name all the models except the only people who would care are the Philofaxy people who can do it themselves!